ABSTRACT The goal of the Academic Nephrology Training Program at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) is to prepare trainees for successful academic careers through expert and comprehensive mentoring in laboratory-based, clinical, or translational research in kidney disease. The rationale for the program is the pressing need for well-trained investigators in adult and pediatric nephrology. The main mission of the program is to develop independent investigators in the pathophysiology, genetics, epidemiology and treatment of kidney diseases. The program has the faculty expertise, infrastructure, and research opportunities to provide outstanding training. The major emphasis of this application is the training of MD and MD/PhD postdoctoral fellows who anticipate research careers in academic medicine. The training faculty have been selected to accommodate the increasingly complex and technologic nature of basic research training and to provide intensive mentoring in clinical (patient-oriented and health services) research methods. They are a highly experienced group from within and outside the adult and pediatric Divisions of Nephrology, which provides great scope and depth of training opportunities. The training program emphasizes thematic and interdisciplinary research pertinent to kidney disease. Areas of investigation include renal epithelial cell biology and transport, kidney development, basic immunology and immunologic kidney disease, epidemiology of acute and chronic kidney disease and associated complications, and the evaluation of novel therapeutic regimens in chronic kidney disease. Trainees will have full access to the UCSF curricula, including extensive didactic training within the UCSF Biomedical Sciences Program and the Advanced Training in Clinical Research Program and other training opportunities provided by the UCSF Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Trainees are required to participate in regularly scheduled, formal Divisional research conferences in which trainees, mentors, and outside speakers present their research. Other elective basic and clinical research conferences are available at multiple UCSF campus sites. A formal T32 Executive Committee oversees the overall program and the progress of all trainees, and an Advisory Council will provide external program evaluation and recommendations. Feedback from the trainees, mentors, and external advisors is used to enhance and improve the training experience. The Program takes pride in its commitment to diversity and academic excellence and actively recruits women and minority trainees.